(A/N: Howdy-ho! Welcome to the second story! Lemme just...start)

Ch. 2: The G Word

Summary: Zim refers to Tak as his girlfriend to see how she reacts.

"Girlfriend".

Zim thought it was such a weird word. He had heard humans use it in so many ways, and seen other humans react to it in so many ways.

Apparently, it does not simply mean a friend that is a girl; no, that would make too much sense. Zim's understanding of the term was that it was what boys called girls when they liked them, and when the girls liked them back, they called them their "boyfriend".

Unfortunately, that got Zim thinking, and these thoughts did not leave his mind for more than a minute at a time.

What if he called Tak HIS "girlfriend"? Could he just do that? What would Tak say? Would she call Zim her "boyfriend"?

...that's what it came down to, didn't it?

Does Tak like me as much as I like her?

Zim was fretting about it all day in Skool, but he finally decided to take action. The only way he would find out would be if he did an experiment!

After the boring day of learning about the inner workings of slaughterhouses, Zim and Tak walked home together as usual. However, Tak noticed that Zim was marching quite slowly.

"Are you tired or what?" she asked. "Come on, we have a lot of homework to do."

"Umm...let's go interrogate somebody!" Zim blurted. "We can gather information on them and stuff and use it against them in our plan to take over the earth!"

"But I hate talking with humans," whined Tak. "And gathering information is what our SIR units are for, anyway."

"YOU SPEAK LIES! I mean...do you think either of them are doing their jobs?" Zim reminded her. MiMi, Tak's robot, had actually grown quite carefree since she and her mistress began living with Zim. "This is an opportunity to really find out their weaknesses! Come on, don't be a scaredy squid! You can hold Zimmy's hand if you're feeling nervous."

Tak took ahold of Zim's hand and nearly crushed it. He'd offered it up in the first place because he was the nervous one. He just smiled through the pain and led Tak over to a middle-aged and portly man sitting on a bench. It was time to drop the figurative bomb.

"Greetings, human man," Zim waved at him. "My girlfriend and I are with, um...the government people, and we were wondering what your weak- - I mean, 'allergies' are."

"Well, now, I'm glad you asked, tiny green census taker!" the man said gladly. "Let's see, there's, uh, parsnips, blue corn, sheep's milk..."

Zim stared at Tak expectantly, but she was just watching the human prattle on in disgust. She didn't react to Zim calling her his girlfriend. Perhaps she hadn't heard him?

"...almonds, shiitake mushrooms, cloudberries- -wait, no, those just give me gas..."

"ENOUGH! Bye."

Zim yanked Tak away from the man, searching for another person to question.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

He couldn't believe it.

EVERY time he had spoken to a human at the park, Zim had introduced Tak as his girlfriend. After a couple times, he'd even emphasized the word, so there was no way Tak hadn't noticed it, despite the fact that he'd said it in passing.

But she never showed any reaction to it. Even on the few occasions Tak had addressed a person, she had not acknowledged Zim, much less called him her boyfriend. Did he really mean that little to her?

So, now the two were making the trip home. Zim solemnly trudged a few feet behind Tak, who was feeling inspired.

"That was actually a pretty good idea you had there!" she complimented him. "I had no idea so many humans could die from eating simple peanuts! We could be onto something with this!"

Finally, she reached the front door to Zim's house and noticed the forlorn alien dragging his feet across the yard. As he approached her, Tak gave him a kiss on the forehead, but he did not perk up as she'd expected him to. She became concerned.

"What's the matter?" she asked.

"I...I called you the G word!" admitted Zim, sounding offended. "Did you not notice?!"

"'G word'? What G word?"

"'Girlfriend'!" Zim clarified. "I called you that the whole time we were at the park! And you didn't even say anything about it!"

"...well, what did you expect me to say?"

"...I don't know! That you were honored! Or that you were pleasantly surprised! Or maybe that it was such a coincidence because you'd always thought of me as your BOYFRIEND!" he spoke in one breath, flushing momentarily.

Tak tilted her head slightly. "I haven't the foggiest idea what those words mean."

Zim eyed her in disbelief. "It means that I really LIKE YOU! That's what it means!"

"I know that. Why do you think you need some silly human label to tell me that?"

"Because! Because!" Zim began to get worn out by all the fuss. "I just wanted to show how much I like you! And see if you like ME that much..."

"How much do you like me, then?" said Tak, putting a finger to her chin.

Zim hung his head and put his arms out at his sides as far as they could go. "THIS much."

Tak grinned and mimicked the position of his arms. "Well, would you look at that? I like you THIS much, too! Now you have nothing to worry about."

Zim stared at her in surprise as she gave him a hug.

"You can be so ridiculous sometimes."

(A/N: N'aww! Wasn't that Suh-WEET? Well, onto the next one, I guess! I'm excited!)